President Bush's invasion of Iraq
will be a strategic mistake with catastrophic
consequences for the United States. So concludes a
report [pay archive] by William S. Lind of the
Free
Congress Foundation.

Lind argues that the U.S. is
attempting to confront terrorism by applying "Second
Generation" warfare—essentially the application of
firepower to targets—to a "Fourth Generation" conflict.
This is a fatal strategic error, because Fourth
Generation conflict is war conducted outside the state
structure by people whose primary loyalty is not to the
state.

Overthrowing the
Taliban and Saddam Hussein does not win Fourth
Generation conflicts. Indeed, it stirs up Islamic
insurgents and exacerbates the crisis of legitimacy of
secular states in Muslim countries, putting our
coalition of "pro-American regimes increasingly at
risk."

The result is to undermine the U.S.
strategy of allying with as many Middle Eastern
governments as possible, while attempting to isolate
terrorists. Those governments that line up with the U.S.
are scorned by determined elements of their own
populations, increasing the possibility of those
governments being swept aside by Islamic revolution
throughout the region. The U.S. ends up isolated instead
of the terrorists.

Lind argues that our government's
strategy for dealing with resurgent Islam rests on
little more than hubris. He cites the belief that the
whole world wants to be like us (and would be if it
weren't for tyrants preventing them) and the belief that
the U.S. is the only superpower and, thereby, the
world's policeman, if not an empire.

The extraordinary confidence with
which neoconservatives
urge the American government to
reconstruct the entire Middle East (socially,
politically, and religiously) contrasts with the
political correctness that makes
airport security a joke. The same government that
wants to invade Iraq is too intimidated by political
correctness to provide homeland security by
profiling terrorists. The government's feeble
efforts to protect our own perimeter spreads fear and
erodes loyalties by telling patriotic citizens that
their own government does not or cannot differentiate
between patriots and terrorists.

A policy, the unintended
consequence of which
could be to aid the resurgence of militant Islam,
should be seriously debated before it is implemented.
Lind writes that debate is silenced by Washington's
court politics: "At court, the outside world is an
unwelcome intrusion. What really counts is the world of
court itself."

Any new thought is unwelcome in a
community absorbed in itself. In Washington, everyone is
comfortable with the permitted debates and how the
debates relate to their interests. Left-wing TV pundits
are comfortable with the predictable arguments of those
on the right, and vice versa. Strategic thinkers are
happy crossing swords within the permissible bounds of
argument. Editors are circumspect to keep published
opinion within the bounds of court politics. Any
disturbance that could threaten budgets, power,
influence and prestige is unwelcome even if the
country's life depends on it.

Court politics, Lind says, works to
benefit the people at court. Only arguments and ideas
that don't threaten court interests are permitted.

Regardless of the motives and
intentions of the Bush administration, Lind notes that
its policies are resulting in a vast increase in the
power of government. He writes:

"The
combination of a strategy that incites non-state
entities all over the world to launch attacks on America
with tactics that make our defenses against such attacks
only marginally effective is tremendously powerful as a
'force multiplier' of government power, resources and
intrusion. Government does not grow when it succeeds; it
grows when it fails. Each new attack on American soil
will bring demands that 'government must do more,' to
which government will happily respond by doing more of
what does not work. We will find ourselves soon enough
with 1984's permanent state of war, and perhaps
with other elements of 1984 as well."

In olden days, kings would kill the
messenger. In Washington, messengers are not permitted.